redwingillini11
White and Sixth
- North Aurora
My suggestion is not 100% serious, as I know it is an unlikely arrangement. But there is nothing that you are saying in that bolded statement that contradicts with what a co-DCship with Kane would provide.These statements are mutually exclusive.
If Leonhard wants, he can take a year off and he'll be just as hot of a DC candidate next year with the benefit of more time to pick his ideal landing spot. The risk is Illinois' defense is destined to regress next season, just a question of whether it will become a (a) good not great defense in '23 or (b) worse. Illinois will have to offer enough of a financial windfall, familiarity (Bielema), belief in the roster pieces, and comfort that taking the DC job at Illinois will quickly propel him to a HC position.
I would disagree with any suggestion that Leonhard would be better served by sitting out a year and waiting for a desired job offer to roll in. We aren't talking about a 100% proven commodity like an elite head coach who can afford to sit out a year calling games on tv. I feel like you have to keep up the grind and coach somewhere if you want a shot to break through to the top in college football coaching.
As for a risk with coming to Illinois when there may be a regression next year? Well, sure yeah I guess there is a risk there. I'm sure a DC position at any of the top schools with 5 star talent returning would be more appealing than our DC job. But its not like 5 star talent is walking out the door here. We have a bunch of 3 stars that worked their butts off to maximize their potential. Nothing that Leonhard hasn't seen at Wisconsin just about every year. Not really sure how much arrangement is affected by this risk. Either he'd consider coming to Illinois with the roster we have or he wouldn't, and it seems like there is at least some consideration there.
Finally, there should be nothing about being a co-coordinator that will hold back future job prospects. Look at Josh Gattis. He had a co-OC in 2021 at Michigan, and parlayed that into a Broyles Award and getting his desired position at Miami. Frankly, I think he got all of the credit for the offense at Michigan that year when he was probably the least deserving compared to Sharrone Moore and Matt Weiss, further evidenced by Michigan's continued success on offense this year and Miami's struggles with Gattis. But the point remains that if you can still parlay a co-coordinator position into your desired position. If they did this and Illinois' defense was still a solid group next year, no one would be penalizing him, and he would get any NFL DC job or head coaching job he so desires.
I'm sure ego can play a lot into whether a coach would agree to such an arrangement. But I'd argue there's a chance that its a fine setup for a guy like Leonhard when he knows this is likely just a stopover on his way to a head coaching position where he can get all of the credit if things go well and less of the blame if things go poorly.